In memoriam: Chris Lightfoot, the bloggers blogger

If you've been around here for a bit, you've seen me mention chrislightfoot a few times. If you've missed it, I'd posit a guess that if you're British, you've been to a site he helped build, possibly without even knowing it. It was announced today on his weblog that he passed away last month. This was followed up by tributes from his two main employers, Tom Steinberg of MySociety and Phil Booth of No2ID.net. If your friends list or feed aggregator has as much overlap with mine as is likely, you've seen many links and tributes already. Here's another.

So, how do I know you've been to a site he built? Easy. How about the Downing Street petitions website (credit)? If you haven't been there, even to simply trawl around, or look at the news story du jure, then you've missed a trick. What about WriteToThem.com , the site that allows you to contact your elected representatives for free online, after a simple postcode search? It's how I first contacted Adrian, and I was very impressed. HearFromYourMP.com has been less of a success, but is still a damn fine idea. PledgeBank? Simply awesome, one of my favourite ideas for a site, and I'm signed up to a few and a couple ongoing relevent pledges, Refuse being the one that first got my attention. And then there's Downing Street Says (number10says), breaking the lobby correspondent secrecy wide open.

But not only was he am innovative and engaged site builder, without whom many of the more innovative online democracy projects may not have been possible, but he was also a top blogger, with a fine analytical streak. Here's a series of articles debunking the loons at the Association of British Drivers. Those links were via Tim at bloggerheads, and he has many more in a fitting tribute.

As for memes? Political Survey 2005 was one of the better at the last election (mine from then and one I just did); looks like I've moved half a point into the centre, not that that makes a difference really. As for why he was a blogger's blogger? He paid attention to referrals and commented on my post taking issue with his axes labelling; nice to know we were both right, for different reasons.

Normally, I cut a post of this length. Not this one. I'm a humanist, I don't believe in an afterlife, I believe that all that matters is your legacy, what you've left behind you, what you've achieved, how you'll be remembered. In Chris's case, he did more in 28 years than I'm likely to achieve in my life. He'll be missed. If the comments on the memorial post on his blog read like a who's who of British blogging, the tributes below the cut are indicative of his influence.

( A linklog of other tributes, long and short )

That's Life on Cars

I don't, normally, read much in the way of fanfic; sometimes something gets linked to that's good, sometimesthere's a specific reason to read something, but normally I filter past it on the communites, or use my LJ-fu to create syndicated accounts for communities with a decent tagging structure. But sometimes, a link gets put up that has to be shared. this is one of them:

SUMMARY: My name is Richard Hammond. I had an accident, and I woke up in 1973. Am I mad, in a coma, or back in time? Whatever's happened, it's like I've landed on a different planet. Now, maybe if I can work out the reason, Jeremy Clarkson will stop yelling in my head.

Genius, especially if you're old enough to remember the horror that was Esther Rantzen's That's Life. My parents loved it, I was a kid, I Had No Choice...